Thursday, July 20, 2017

India has
elected ~ may not be, We, the people of India – Mr Ram Nath Kovind is the new
President elect. He has defeated
Opposition’s candidate Meira Kumar by a huge margin to officially become the 14th
President of India. Before we read
further, do you know or remember Prof KT Shah and his fling at President’s
chair ?

Polling to choose
the 14th President of Indiaas the incumbent President Pranab
Mukherjee demits office on 24 July, was held simultaneously at 32 polling stations
– one in Parliament House and one each in 29 state assemblies and two union
territories with assemblies. LokSabha Secretary General Anoop Mishra is the
Returning Officer for the election, and will issue the certificate to the
winning candidate.

The President of
India is indirectly elected by an electoral college consisting of the elected
members of both houses of parliament, the elected members of the Legislative
assemblies of the 29 states and the elected members of the legislative
assemblies of the Union Territories of Delhi and Puducherry. As of 2017, the electoral college comprised of
776 MPs and 4,120 MLAs.

There have been 13
presidents of India since the introduction of the post in 1950(the current
tenure is 5 years of an Indian President). The post was established when India
was declared as a Republic with the adoption of the Indian constitution. Apart
from these thirteen, three acting presidents have also been in office for short
periods of time. VarahagiriVenkataGiri became Acting President of India in 1969
following the death of ZakirHussain, who died in office. Giri was elected
President a few months later. He remains the only person to have held office
both as a president and acting president. Rajendra Prasad, the first President
of India, is the only person to have held office for two terms.

A total of 4,896
voters – 4,120 MLAs and 776 elected MPs – were eligible to cast their ballot.
MLCs of states with legislative council are not part of the electoral
college.While the value of an MLA's vote depends on the population of the state
he or she belongs to, the value of an MP's vote is the same at 708. The breakup of 4,896 members is - 543 Members of LokSabha, 233 Members of RajyaSabha and 4120 members of State Assemblies.

While the LokSabha
Speaker, an elected member, can vote, the two nominated members in the Lower
House from the Anglo-Indian community cannot. Twelve nominated members in
RajyaSabha are also ineligible to vote.
It is not equal. Each MP and MLA vote has a certain value attached to
it. And this value differs from state to state. Each MP’s vote is 708 : 708 x 776 =
5,49,408. The votes of MLAs (4896) totals the same 5,49,408 = 10,98,903. The winner needs to secure 50% of valid votes
polled.

The First
Presidential Elections in free India were held on 2nd May 1952. Dr.
Rajendra Prasad won his first election with 507,400 votes over his nearest
rival K. T. Shah who got 92,827 votes. There were other contenders too :Thatte
Lakshman Ganesh (2672); ChowdhryHari Ram (1954) and Krishna Kumar Chatterjee
(533).. Prof K.T. Shah was known for
his active role in the Constituent Assembly (General, Bihar) responsible for
framing of the Indian Constitution. An alumnus of the London School of
Economics, he was a socialist leader, he was the runner-up in 1st
Presidential election in India.